Welcome to Postal History Sunday!
Before we get started, take a moment to prepare your favorite beverage and, if you want it, a snack. Remember that you need to keep these things away from your keyboard and the paper items. We don't want any accidents that might bring about bad feeling! And speaking about bad feeling, let's take those troubles and put them in a blender with some peas. Not only will you have whirled peas (think about it), your troubles won't be recognizable anymore.
As for whirled peas, I heard somewhere that everyone wanted whirled peas.
Let's start with a Merry Chase!
Our last couple of Postal History Sundays have featured items that have been forwarded. Last week, we even tried to solve a mystery! In the week before that, we described what it meant to forward mail. If you don't feel like taking a link to read, I can help you out. In postal history, forwarding is a specific type of redirected mail. These are letters that were correctly addressed and the postal service attempted to deliver to that location - only to find out that the recipient had moved on. The letter could then re-enter the mail system to a new address if a new location was known for the addressee.
Sometimes, when a person was traveling, a letter could follow them on a merry chase from one location to another. I've always enjoyed old envelopes that have taken these "merry chases," though I admit that there are times when they also give me a headache as I try to figure how they got from place to place. It's during those moments that I set the cover aside and wait until the motivation to figure it out returns. The envelope I am featuring today is one such item.
This envelope addressed to Miss S. Louise Jewell (Sarah Louise Jewell 1853-1935), who was the Matron of Sumner Hall at Pomona College in Claremont, California, presents us with a merry chase that I am still in process of completely figuring it out. Apparently, Miss Jewell decided to have a grand European travel adventure during the summer of 1914 - which became a very interesting time to travel because Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in June and World War I would get its start a month later when Austria-Hungary declared war with Serbia.
The letter was initially addressed to Paris, France - care of the American Express Company - arriving in Paris on August 17. At bottom left, the address is made more specific with the notation "Am. Travel Club Party No. 4." So, Miss Jewell was apparently with a group that was tracked by American Express, providing both financial and mail forwarding services. The travel group number made it easier for American Express to know where the recipients should have been on the itinerary.
By the time this letter had arrived in France, Austria-Hungary had invaded Russia, Germany had invaded Luxembourg and Belgium and France had decided to try and take back the Alsace region they had lost in 1870 to Germany.
On its arrival, it was noted that the 2 cent US stamp was inadequate to pay the foreign postage (5 cents) for the letter. That means postage was due and the cost (at least some of it) was provided by the American Express Company. That payment is indicated by the three French postage due stamps - showing payment of 30 centimes of postage. **
** Note, I am not an expert in this area, so I am not going to spend time deciphering what paid for what this time around! If you understand UPU forwarding rules in the 1910s, I am willing to listen. There is a description on page 251 in the book by Wawrukiewicz and Beecher "US International Postal Rates, 1872-1996," but I don't have time to absorb, apply and re-describe that information this week.
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| S/S Alaunia (Cunard Line) - from Wikimedia Common - photo by Chaplain 4th Class The Rev. Oswin Creighton. 1915 photo in Alexandria, when Alaunia served as crew ship. |
The next step I can easily determine is that the letter was forwarded to London, England, to the Cunard steamship Alaunia.
The Alaunia was a fairly new ship at the time Miss Jewell was traveling, having had its maiden voyage in December of 1913. This ship and its sister ships only had 2nd and 3rd class options, which was clearly meant to take advantage of high immigration numbers from Europe to the United States. But it may also reflect the increase in travel interest by the general public in the United States. These people would not have been able to afford first class accommodations, but they were still interested in seeing the world.
The Alaunia was soon pressed into military service to carry troops. It sank after a very short sailing career when it collided with a mine in the English Channel in October of 1916.
Getting back to our cover - this letter arrived in London on August 31st (according to a postmark on the back of the envelope) but the ship must have already left to cross the Atlantic, with Miss Jewell on board. As a result, the cover was reposted in London on that same day to Pomona College in Claremont, California.
Back home and safe after what must have been a tense situation while she was in Europe, Miss Jewell finally got to open and enjoy her letter.
** There appears to be an additional address or instruction in blue crayon, but I cannot decipher it. If anyone else wants to take a crack at it - please feel free to do so!
Don't leave home without it
Here is another letter mailed on April 16, 1911 from Wellesley, Massachusettes, that was initially sent to the American Express Company in Paris. This time Miss Marion Mackley was taking the European tour, but well before the events of World War I were unfolding.
In this case, the letter was forwarded from the American Express offices in Paris to their offices in Rome. Apparently, the recipient received this letter there and no further forwarding was required. Of interest is the pre-printed label that was affixed over the original address. Clearly, there was enough traffic between the Paris and Rome offices by this time that there was a real time saving in having these labels printed and available to the American Express staff.
Once again, the cost to mail a letter from the United States to a Universal Postal Union (UPU) member country was five cents, which was paid by the blue stamp at the top right. The UPU was a convention for mail that dictated how mail could be exchanged between postal entities. The agreement set maximum postage rates (countries could agree to lower rates) as well as postal procedures. In the case of forwarded mail, if the letter was properly prepaid to get to its first destination, forwarding between UPU member nations would be provided for free.
This is why our first letter is a bit more difficult to decipher. It was not sent properly prepaid to the first destination. As a result, additional rules took precedence on how the deficit might be paid and what needed to happen to cover forwarding costs.
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| 1928 AmEx Tour Book from a lot on AbeBooks, link no longer live |
American Express was first established in 1850 as an express delivery business, specializing in carrying valuable contents for banks and other financial concerns. They found that focusing on the typically smaller, but more valuable, items was a successful business model. They launched a money order business in 1881 and then introduced traveler's cheques in 1891. These cheques came in standard denominations of $10, $20, $50 and $100.
Time Magazine (Apr 9, 1956) tells the origin story of traveler's checks. Apparently J.C. Fargo - the third president of American Express - was disgusted to find that it was not easy to acquire cash in Europe despite having letters of credit for that purpose. Upon returning, he ordered his staff to address the problem. Marcellus Flemming Berry is credited with the invention of traveler's cheques, which are still in limited use today - though more convenient money transfer methods are more common now.
The Paris office for American Express was opened in 1895 and by the time we get to the 1901, American Express was selling $6 million worth of traveler's cheques annually. By the time these letters were sent, American Express had a very strong international presence.
During the summer of 1914, an estimated 150,000 American tourists were stranded as war spread throughout Europe. Our first letter recipient, Miss Jewell, may very well have been one such traveler. European banks had ceased to honor foreign letters of credit and many travelers found their way to American Express, who facilitated many return trips to the United States.
The travel bug
Shown above is another letter sent from Oakland, California, on September 23, 1910 to Miss Alice Earl, another individual who was clearly on the move. The letter was initially mailed to Messrs Hottinguer and Company (established in 1786 and active today). Hottinguer and Company provided financial services at the time and would have honored "letters of credit" that travelers often used to access money.
Miss Earl was no longer in Paris when this letter arrived, so it was forwarded to another financial firm in Rome and forwarded yet again to and agent in Cairo, Egypt. Apparently the letter found Miss Earl there and its voyages through postal services (and financial forwarding agents) were at an end. Once again, the letter was properly prepaid to the initial destination so no additional postage was required to forward it - even if the letter took its "merry chase" to more than one location. Forwarding was free as long as each new destination was in another UPU member country.
If a person were so inclined, it would not be hard to find many examples of letters from the early 1900s to single, "unattached" women traveling the world. These letters will commonly provide an example of mail forwarding and a person could reconstruct the relative popularity of various financial firms that supported travelers over that period. You could even get an idea as to which destinations or trip itineraries were in favor at the time.
An interesting short article by Nicolas Bourguinat discusses some of the trends of "feminine mobility" in the 1800s, including exercising the freedom to travel the world. Bourguinat suggests that because several female writers chronicled their travel in the mid 1800s, it became a "model of accomplishment" for other women to follow. One such example was Ida Pfeiffer, who wrote about two world tours. And another that is of particular interest to me is Fredrika Bremer, a Swede who visited the United States in 1849. Her travels in the US included visits to many Scandinavia communities in the Upper Midwest. In fact, a town in our area is named after her.
I hope you enjoyed today's virtual travel by taking a look at how mail could be forwarded from one country to another. Unfortunately, none of today's covers still have their contents. I am sure most letters provided the news from home and inquiries about what the traveler might be seeing and experiencing.
Sometimes the letters might have expressed a desire that they come home - which likely WAS the case for Miss Jewell in our first letter. News of unrest in Europe had certainly reached acquaintances and loved ones, and it was only natural that they be concerned for the traveler's safety. Without the contents, we can only imagine the words that were said and the advice given. But I am fairly certain that the letter included the words "come home."
Thank you for joining me this week. Have a fine remainder of your day and an excellent week to come.
A cover like this should be marked by the US office of exchange with a centimes due mark. The amount in this mark should indicate the amount to pay in postage due in gold centimes. The amount to pay was the double of the amount missing. The exchange rate between US cents and goldcentimes was 1 to 5. So the amout to be indicated was 2x3x5=30 goldcentimes. This centimes due mark is te opera glass mark seen under th two killers. It has the text T cemtimes 30 D. This amount was converted to French centimes in Paris, at the rate 1 to 1, to 30 centimes and postage due stamps were affixed for the corresponding amount. These stamps were affixed on arrival without getting paid for them. And in this case they have most probably not been paid for and this is indicated by the ink cross over the stamps. When the cover came back to New York the exchange office marked the amount due (which was still due) with the opera glass mark Hudson Term Due 6 cents. This amount should normally have been paid by the addressee and US postage due stamps affixed but of some reason this has not been done. Another question is why there are killers over the T Centimes 30 mark. They look English so perhaps the English thougt that the due was paid (but the US did not)
ReplyDeleteThank you Soren! This explains to me why I was having trouble figuring it out. It was a fairly complex explanation. As always, I appreciate your input, especially when I go outside my area of greatest comfort.
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